Azarel a novel (English)

Now Father began again. „I’m asking you for the last time, do you want to behave
normally?”
„I don’t want anything,” I replied, „just let me go away.”
His face ashen and his voice stern, Father shot back: „Go ahead! But completely!
And you will not cross this threshold ever again. Not even if you starve to
death. I’ve ceased to exist for you.”
Now Mother spoke. „Let him go. He’ll think things over down there.”
„He can’t come here anymore,” Father responded. „It’s all over.” „All right,”
I said, „let it be over.”
And I headed off. But I was scared, because I sensed that he’d want to give
me one last hiding, one for the road.
Indeed, hardly had I stepped to the door than he reached out and grabbed me
by the arm.
Mother cried out: „Papa!”
Then I said, trembling: „If you smack me, I’ll bite you, even if you beat the
life out of me, plus then I’ll stick to your soul!” „Let him go,” said Mother.
Father obliged.
„No,” he said hoarsely, „I’m not going to sully my hands anymore with you. Get
out of here!”
With this he hastened into the bedroom. Mother shot me a glance as if to say,
„Get going and stay out there.”
But I called back. „You didn’t have the guts to be a real mother. You didn’t,
I’m telling you! It’s all over, you know!”
Out I went, bareheaded, through the hall, down the stairs into the courtyard,
out onto the street. It was terribly muddy out there, muddy and cold. I paused
in front of the building.
There, now you finally had the guts to do what you’ve wanted to do so many times.
At last! At last!
But don’t you get scared of catching a cold like you did at night, and don’t
give a second thought to being hungry, don’t you be afraid of anything, just
go straight ahead, ahead, all night, and then it’ll be Friday night anyway,
so you’ll come on back here, to the synagogue, and you’ll wait outside listening
until your father speaks, and right when he clasps his hands together and looks
up at the sky, and says, „Dear God, almighty and good, watch over the poor,
orphans, children, and all those who suffer. …” - then all of a sudden you’ll
go inside, stand up in front of everyone, and shout: „All lies, every word of
his! And the Good Lord is just like him, too, yes, he hits his kid because of
God.”
And then everyone will turn toward you and mutter, „What’s that? What’s that?”
And your father will run down from that pulpit, angry and ashamed, wanting to
get hold of you, yes, he’ll run after you just like he is, in that high velvet
hat of his, but you’ll run away between the benches, shouting: „Ha! See, everyone?
That’s what he’s like! Ha!” - and you’ll be running all the while - „before
it was `watch over the children”‘ - you’re running, you are - „and now he wants
to beat the life out of me here and now. Ha!
But don’t you folks let him, because then all of you are just like him, no,
don’t let him. …” - and you’re running here and there; his gown is really long
that he doesn’t have a chance of catching you, so you just go on shouting: „Listen
to me, everyone. I’ll tell you everything, all about what he’s really like.”
And when you notice that not even they protect you from him - no, they’re outright
scared and ashamed, not listening to a word you say but just out to catch you
and give you back to your father so he can go on smacking you - why then, you’ll
take to biting and kicking and shouting, and you’ll run out of the synagogue
straight into the convent’s church next door, which is open all night long and
where there’s always someone on hand, and, no, you won’t be frightened there
either. And if they ask you, „Whadaya want here, Jew boy?” you’ll say: „I’m
here because I said this and that, like this and that, on account of this and
that, to my father and the Jews in the synagogue. Now I’m here to see what you
people are really like. Do you all hate me and all think bad things about me,
like those poncikter kids, do you figure I stink, that I’m a coward, and that
I’m some junk dealer’s kid, just because I’m a Jew? Or will you protect me from
my father and the other Jews, who are all ashamed of me and want to give me
back to my father just so he can go on smacking me?”
And if those Christians say: „Sure we’ll protect you, kid, all you got to do
is convert and pray to these paintings and statues and this cross here. Off
with the hat, and on your knees!”
At which you: „That I will not do. Protect me just for the sake of protecting
me!”
At which they, now more sternly: „And why won’t you do that?”
At which you: „Because I’m too proud, I am, to convert just because there are
more of you, and because I’m afraid, and because they beat me at home.”
At which they: „Oh yeah? Well if you’re that proud, then scat, you hear? Get
a move on back to the other Jews.”
At which you: „So that’s how it is. You folks are no different from Father!
What you are saying is `Obey me or get out of my sight. …’Yes, you people do
nothing either but lie left and right about the `Good Lord.’ I knew it, I always
knew it!”
At which they: „Hear that? To the dungeon with him, with the Jew boy!”
And they seize you.
At which you: „I knew it, I knew that too, but I’ll just go on biting you folks
until you beat the life out of me and I stick to your souls.”
Such were my thoughts, although in fact I was still standing there in front
of our building. And what did I notice all of a sudden in the mud before me,
but a roll - my roll, which I’d thrown down there from up above.
Its golden brown face peered at me from the mud, and again it sneered. „You’ll
be sorry. You’re hungry. Come on, wipe me off and eat me. They won’t know anyway.”
Whereupon I stepped over and stomped it farther into the mud.
„I’m not about to get scared of you, you lousy roll. You belong to them too!”
But it only said: „There’s a long way to go till night. You plan to go hungry?
`Sustenance spells strength,’ remember.”
„I don’t need it,” I replied, and stomped it even deeper.
At which it said through a laugh: „Ha! Are you ever hungry!” That’s just how
it was. But now, before I could have started off, Lidi stepped before me. Mother
had sent her down with my cap and overcoat.
„Here you are,” she said, „put them on.”
The cap and the coat both gave me a sharp, sidelong glance, as I was in the
habit of doing to Father.
„Get a load of how cold this kid is,” said the coat. „He’s not anemic, is he?”
And the cap: „Think you can keep from catching a cold if you go around bareheaded
like that?”
„Come on now,” said Lidi. „I’ve got other things to tend to.”
„I don’t need them,” I replied. „I’m not afraid of anything. Tell that to my
mother. I’m sure not taking a coat from anyone who’s not a real mother.”
Yet I took the cap all the same.
„Not because I’m scared, you know, but just so there’ll be something on me.
So folks won’t stare as much.”
„Whatever,” said Lidi, already on her way.
Good, I thought, so this is over too.
Looking about the street, I thought: If you move about, you’ll keep from getting
cold.
These words, just like those that the roll and the overcoat and the cap had
already spoken, had etched their way into my mind straight from my parents;
and now I was no more keen on hearing my parents than such words. What’s that?
I thought. You’re talking to me even now? Well, I’m not going to „move,” and
I won’t get cold either!
At this I headed off, but ever so slowly. Passing by the synagogue, I took a
long look at the building, on which, well above me, these words loomed large:
AND I LIGHT THE WAY BEFORE YOU,
DAY AND NIGHT, SO YOU DO NOT FEAR
Ha! I thought. He’s talking too? You light the way? But for whom?
For my father, the wicked rabbi, and for my mother, the cowardly woman who is
anything but my real mother.